No Show Museum

The No Show Museum is an art museum, established in Zurich, Switzerland in 2013, devoted to nothing and its various manifestations throughout the history of art. It claims to be the first of its kind. [1] Founded in 2013 by Swiss conceptual artist and curator Andreas Heusser,[2] the museum's collection today includes around 400 works and documents from over 120 international artists of the 20th and 21st centuries.

In July 2015, the No Show Museum launched its first European tour which led through 20 countries of Central and Northern Europe and included around 30 exhibitions in museums and empty galleries in public spaces and remote areas.[3] The tour ended in October 2015 with an exhibition and presentation of nothing in Venice where the No Show Museum was invited by Pro Helvetia's Salon Suisse as an official participant of the 56th Art Biennale.[4]

Conceptual background

Nothing as a aesthetic category

In the course of the 20th century, nothing has become as distinctive an aesthetic category as “the beautiful”, “the ugly” or "the absurd".[5] The artistic examination of the (non) phenomenon "nothing" has led artists and critics to question the traditional practices of art production and open up new possibilities of spatial, temporal and material interpretation. Nothing is usually understood as the negation of being and figuration, but strictly speaking, it is impossible to define nothing.[6] Every attempt to describe, represent or materialize nothing is doomed to fail, and it is this very fact that has inspired many artists of the 20th century to work intensively with nothing and the paradoxes of its (re)presentation. The result is a large number of artistic strategies and works on nothing.[7]

Nothing as a ready-made

Already in 1913, Marcel Duchamp demonstrated with his first ready-mades how any object can be converted into art by removing it from the sphere of ordinary life and placing it in a gallery or museum.[8] This move from one context to another changes the way spectators view an object: in the context of art, it is no longer perceived as a mere object, but instead as placeholder of an idea or of an artistic intention. The result of such attributions is that the formerly ordinary object is transformed into a work of art. The same principle can be applied to nothing, and nothing can equally acquire “the dignity of a work of art by the mere choice of the artist” (André Breton).[9] Whether it will also be recognized as a work of art and become part of the art discourse, however, primarily depends on the kind of institutional or contextual environment in which it is shown. The No Show Museum is an attempt to create such an institutional framework for ensuring in the long run that nothing is art.[10]

The museum as a mobile art context

Although the museum’s collection is virtual, the museum does have a physical space for presentations setup in a restored and customized post bus. Thus, the museum provides a moving art context that can either be attached to established institutions are function autonomously. Moreover, the mobile museum offers the opportunity to discover new regions and spaces for the contexts of nothing, and it serves as a marker to indicate any place as an exhibition area.[11]

The museum as a parable

The No Show Museum reproduces the typical structures, mechanisms, rituals and strategies of established art institutions. And as a result, the project becomes a model in which we can observe the contextual conditions that are required for the recognition of something (or nothing) as art. Implicit in the project, then, is the question: What is needed for the successful promotion and marketing of art?[12]

List of artists represented

The following artists have been represented:

Ignasi Aballí, Marina Abramovic, Akademia Ruchu, Alphonse Allais, Francis Alÿs, Paweł Althamer, Keith Arnatt, Art + Language, Michael Asher, David Batchelor, John Baldessari, Joseph Beuys, Irma Blank, Robert Barry, Mel Bochner, Marinus Boezem, Maurizio Bolognini, George Brecht, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Stefan Brüggemann, Chris Burden, Daniel Buren, James Lee Byars, John Cage, Lewis Caroll, Graciela Carnevale, Maurizio Cattelan, Lai Chih-Sheng, Christo, Jay Chung, Sebastian Cichocki, Nathan Coley, Martin Creed, Song Dong, Marcel Duchamp, Eric Doeringer, Maria Eichhorn, Elmgreen + Dragset, Cerith Wyn Evans, Robert Filliou, Spencer Finch, Urs Fischer, Henry Flynt, Ceal Floyer, Paweł Freisler, Tom Friedman, Ryan Gander, Dora Garcia, Eugen Gomringer, Alexandre Gurita, Simon Gush], Hans Haacke, Denis Handschin, Noriyuki Haraguchi, Jeppe Hein, Michael Heizer, Knut Henrik Henriksen, Roger Hiorns, Carsten Höller, Stewart Home, Vlatka Horvat, Tehching Hsieh, Douglas Huebler, Bethan Huws,Robert Irwin, Bruno Jakob, Ray Johnson, Raphaël Julliard, Roxy Kawitzky, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Imi Knoebel, Daniel Knorr, Christine Kozlov, Agnisezka Kurant, Sol LeWitt, Thomas Locher, Kazimir Malevich, Theresa Margolles, Walter de Maria, Agnes Martin, Gordon Matta-Clark, Francesco Matarrese, Piero Manzoni, Gustav Metzger, Ghislain Mollet-Viéville, Andrei Monastyrski , Sarah Morris, Gianni Motti, Anthea Moys, Mark Mumford, Carsten Nicolai, Claes Oldenburg, Roman Ondák, Yoko Ono, Jean-Michel Othoniel, Nam June Paik, Laurie Parsons, Vincenzo Peruggia, Jack Pierson, Simon Pope, Robert Rauschenberg,Man Ray, Ad Reinhardt, Gerhard Richter, Alexandr Rodschenko, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Roland Roos, Mark Rothko, Robert Ryman, Karin Sander, Gregor Schneider, Tino Sehgal, Richard Serra, Santiago Sierra, Mieko Shiomi, Herbert Schuldt, Matt Sheridan Smith, Robert Smithson, Lawrence Sterne, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Superflex, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Endre Tot, James Turrell, Lee Ufan, Günter Umberg, Ben Vautier, Herman de Vries, Ben Vautier, Andy Warhol, James Webb, Ai Weiwei, Neil Wenman, Doug Wheeler, Ed Young, Rémy Zaugg

References

  1. ↑ cf.: Art in Berlin: "Dem Nichts Raum geben"
  2. ↑ "Andreas Heusser".
  3. ↑ See: Documentation on www.facebook.com/noshowmuseum or on www.noshowmuseum.com, section "Archive/Past Exhibitions"
  4. ↑ Steiner, Juri; Zweifel, Stefan: "Pro Helvetia's platform to present the Swiss contributions to the Venice Biennials"
  5. ↑ cf. Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: "The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972". New York, Praeger, 1973, p. 40.
  6. ↑ cf. Lütkehaus, Ludger: "Nichts", Haffmans Verlag, Zürich 1999
  7. ↑ See the following exhibition catalogues on nothing:
    • Armleder, John; Copeland, Matthieu; Le Bon, Laurent; Metzger, Gustav; Perret, MaiThu; Phillpot, Clive and Pirotte, Philippe (eds): "Voids: A Retrospective", Zürich : JRP Ringier, 2009
    • Hollein, Max, Weinhart, Martina: "Nichts – Nothing", Ostfildern : Hatje Cantz, 2006
    • Rugoff, Ralph: "Art about the Unseen", 1957-2012, London: Hayward Publishing, 2012
    • Varnedoe, Kirk: "Pictures of Nothing. Abstract Art since Pollock", Princeton/Oxford : Princeton University Press, 2006
  8. ↑ cf. Dorothee Fauth: "Kunstlexikon: Readymade". Hatje Cantz 2003.
  9. ↑ Hector Olbak: "The Unfindable Readymade"
  10. ↑ "La musée qui n'a rien à montrer". RTS.ch (2014-12-26)
  11. ↑ "Das Nichts ist unser aller Horizont". Tages-Anzeiger (2015-05-27)
  12. ↑ "Nichts als ein Museum". Surprise Strassenmagazin Nr. 351/15

External links

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